Edinburgh stumble as top four pull away in URC race

Edinburgh surrendered the brief momentum they gathered before the break by losing away to Benetton, thus enabling the top four to start pulling away from the chasing pack after round 8 of the Vodacom United Rugby Championship.

Benetton avenged the big defeat they suffered at the DAM Health Stadium before the break for the international window by confirming just how much more difficult they are to deal with at home with a hard-fought seven-point win over the fifth-placed team. With the top four of Leinster, Ulster, the Vodacom Bulls and the DHL Stormers all picking up a full house of log points this past weekend, that means there is now daylight between them and the chasing pack.

However, Cardiff’s unexpected win over the Cell C Sharks in the final game of the round not only came at the perfect time for Welsh rugby, which is beleaguered following the Wales national team’s loss to Australia and the three defeats suffered by Welsh teams to the other South African franchises, it has also established the team as a proper threat in the competition.

Leinster thumped the Glasgow Warriors, thus preventing Franco Smith’s team from getting any kind of revenge for the humiliation they suffered at the hands of last year’s log winners and beaten European Championship Cup finalists in the 2021/2022 quarterfinal earlier in the year. Their bonus point win keeps them comfortably at the top, eight points ahead of second-placed Ulster.

The Belfast-based team in turn comfortably beat Zebre to stay one point ahead of the South African duo of the Bulls and Stormers. The Bulls are officially third because they have won one more game than the Stormers, but the champions have a game in hand on them and on Leinster. Ulster also have a game in hand on the other two top-four teams.

What is significant though is the six-point margin created on fifth-placed Edinburgh now by the fourth-placed Stormers. That becomes more significant a gap when you factor in the Cape team’s game in hand. It is more than one win and leaves the chasing pack playing catch-up as the official mid-point of the competition is reached this weekend. The top four teams play host in the first round of the Grand Final Series next April.

Cardiff though, now in a comfortable sixth place ahead of the resurgent Edinburgh Lions, are starting to become a talking point. Not only did they break the Welsh duck in the competition (under the URC masthead) by beating the Sharks in Durban, it was also their first win on the road since 2021.

With their home form already impressive this year, and the champion Stormers numbering among their victims at Cardiff Arms Park, the breaking of their away bogey is a significant moment for Cardiff and does confirm them as a threat to the top four if they can continue with their momentum. They are certainly well in the frame currently to challenge for the place in the play-offs that all the Welsh teams missed out on last year, as well as by extension the Champions Cup.

They can obtain Champions Cup status two ways - they can win the Welsh Shield, which is starting to look a distinct possibility as they have a seven-point lead over the second-placed Dragons, while their advantage over pre-tournament Shield favourites, the Ospreys, is now eight points.

Of course, there is a long way to go in the competition, but the 14th and 15th places occupied by the Ospreys and Scarlets respectively does from a Welsh viewpoint counterbalance the improvement being shown by Cardiff as the new Welsh flagbearers.

That those two teams lagging near the bottom though are just five (Ospreys) and 10 (Scarlets) points behind the eighth-placed team, currently Benetton, is confirmation of just how tight the battle for top eight and Champions Cup places is. The only team really out of it is Zebre, who slumped to their eighth loss when they went down to Ulster.

How quickly things can change because of the logjam in the middle of the table was shown by Munster, who with their hard-fought 24-17 win over Connacht in their Irish derby in Limerick this weekend managed to move from 14th to ninth, just one spot away from being bracketed among the play-off teams.

Graham Rowntree’s team have two points to make up on Benetton, who with their victory over Edinburgh have introduced a bit of vulnerability to the position of the leaders of the Scottish/Italian Shield. At the same time, their quest to qualify for the Champions Cup was helped by their main rivals in the Shield, Glasgow, failing to get any log points in their visit to Leinster. Glasgow are now languishing in 10th place, eight points behind Edinburgh and two behind Benetton.

Weekend Vodacom United Rugby Championship results:

DHL Stormers 36 Scarlets 19

Ulster 36 Zebre 15

Benetton 24 Edinburgh 17

Vodacom Bulls 43 Ospreys 26

Leinster 40 Glasgow Warriors 5

Munster 24 Connacht 17

Emirates Lions 33 Dragons 25

Cell C Sharks 0 Cardiff Rugby 35